Once
again it is time for us to request payment of your annual dues.As last year’s dues notice warned and as
was reported on our web site, the Annual General Meeting on 19 July, 2004
approved a proposal of the Council that dues be increased.The old rates had been effect since 1991,
and costs have increased substantially since then.The dues for 2005 are $65.00 for
individuals and $90.00 for institutions.

Your
prompt payment will be very much appreciated.If you are paying with a check that
does not contain your name, could you please write your name on it or include
your name on a separate piece of paper within the envelope?(Institutions should include a copy of the
invoice form.)This will save us much
time here.

The
volumes for 2005 and 2006 will be continuations of the earliest year book
reports (prior to 1300) by Dr. Paul Brand.Dr. Brand’s discovery of a number of previously unpublished year book
reports from the reign of Edward I is an important event in the history of
our discipline.The two volumes of
these reports that appeared in volume 111 and 112 have already substantially
increased our knowledge of the developments in this important reign, and we
look forward to the continuation.

Volume
121 (for 2004), an edition of previously unprinted reports from the years
1509–1550 by Professor J. H. Baker, was mailed to all members paid up for
2004 at the end of last year.This
completes Professor Baker’s current undertakings with respect to the early
Tudor law reports, publications that, it is fair to say, have totally revised
our understanding of what happened during these crucial years.

Dr.
Brand’s volumes will probably be followed in 2007 by Mr. Le Poidevin’s
edition of Bryt’s Reports (a named Year Book reporter of the early fifteenth
century).Further along in the
pipeline are a proposed edition of William Staunford’s Plees del Coron (1557)
and an edition of the papers of Sir Matthew Hale’s law reform commission of
the 1550’s.

The
Supplementary Series will soon be recontinued with works that are nearing
completion.The Letters of Sir
William Blackstone, edited by Professor W. R. Prest is about to go to
print.Other volumes in the pipeline
include Dr. David Crook’s The King’s Bench and Common Bench in the Reign
of Henry III and Dr. A. Lyall’s edition of Cases in the Irish Court of
Exchequer, 1716–34.

Last
year Hein, with the Society’s permission, issued a volume reproducing the
whole of the Society’s lecture series from 1952–2001.The volume has over 700 pages and is case
bound in maroon cloth similar to that of the Supplementary Series.Many of the past lectures have been out of
print for some years, and the Council hope that members and especially
libraries will want to complete their holdings.The volume is offered to members at a
special price of $120 inclusive of all dispatch costs.A leaflet with order form will be sent to
members in a forthcoming dispatch.

Hein
has also reprinted the four volumes of Professor Thorne’s edition of Bracton on the Laws and Customs of England.The price is $395, with a discount to Selden members of twenty percent, plus dispatch
costs.Simultaneously, the Ames
Foundation, the Harvard Law School Library, and the Legal Information
Institute of the CornellLawSchool
have produced a fully-searchable “on-line” version of both the Latin and the
English text of Bracton.It is available on the “world-wide web” at:

The
Ames Foundation, which, as many Selden members know, is an organization
similar to Selden, though its publications
are more irregular, has recently entered into a distribution agreement with
Hein & Co.Hein has the stock of Ames back volumes and
has reprinted those volumes that are out of print.Hein has also agreed to give discounts on Ames volumes to Selden members similar to those that Ames has offered in the
past.

We
call your attention to the “web page” for the Selden Society.This contains a complete list of Selden publications and other information that we hope
will be useful.It is available on the
“world-wide web” at:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/Programs/selden_society/

Links may found on this page to Selden’s London web page.A similar “web page” for the Ames
Foundation is available at:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/Programs/ames_foundation/

Members will receive the
announcement of the Society’s Annual General Meeting which will be held in
conjunction with the British Legal History Conference at University College
London on Monday, 4 July, at 5:30 p.m.It will be preceded by tea at 4:30 and followed by a lecture by the
Society’s Literary Director Professor Sir John Baker QC FBA, on
“Legal Education in London
1250–1850.”Members need not be
attending the Conference in order to come to the tea, the meeting, and the
lecture.Further information may be
obtained from the Secretary at the addresses listed above.